Reference: More than 500 New Words, Phrases, Senses Added to Oxford English Dictionary in Latest Updated

The December 2013 update of the Oxford English Dictionary is now live and a new “New Word Notes” post from OED offers some background.

Along with the new words and phrases more than 1,000 entries have been revised.

One of the new words added is emoji.

Emojiis a Japanese loanword referring to small digital images or icons that are used in texting and other electronic communications to express ideas and emotions. The similarity of emoji to the similar concept “emoticon” makes the word easy for English speakers to remember, but the resemblance is entirely coincidental: emoji is derived ultimately from the Japanese words e (picture) and moji (letter, character), whereas emoticon is from the English words emotion and icon.

More from OED:

Some of the new legal terminology added in this update is a reminder that the language of the law can be vividly metaphoric. The concept of the fruit of the poisonous tree was introduced in American jurisprudence to refer to evidence which has been obtained illegally and is therefore inadmissible in court. A chilling effect is a discouraging or deterring effect on the exercise of individual rights caused by a fear of legal action. And from the jargon of bankruptcy proceedings comes the cramdown, a court-ordered debt restructuring which creditors are required to accept, despite their objections (it is crammed down their figurative throats).

Read the Complete Post for more including a discussion of the revised entry for ‘DJ’.

Gary Price (gprice@mediasourceinc.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. Before launching INFOdocket, Price and Shirl Kennedy were the founders and senior editors at ResourceShelf and DocuTicker for 10 years. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com, and is currently a contributing editor at Search Engine Land.